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Natural philosophy
The Philosophy of nature studies the being of bodies, dealing with the very meaning of the term "body". In the course of doing so, it deals with a large number of problems. The most universal and obvious characteristic of the corporeal world is change (motion), which the Presocratic philosopher Heraclitus made into a major philosophical subject. Nature has been a fundamental problem ever since the fundamental distinction between being and becoming was pointed out. History Mechanists ]]The Presocratic philosopher Heraclitus argued that change affects the substance of bodies, such as the production of water by hydrogen and oxygen combining. Among the philosophers who were "Mechanists" argued that the corporeal substance is simply identified with matter, which in turn is identified with quantity or geometrical extension. Most philosophers agree that bodies are modifications of the same single substance, and that the universe is devoid of quality and energy, as space and local motion are real for them. There were a range of views from Rene Descartes's extreme views that only the soul exists, to those who believe that the body, not the soul, exists. Dynamists ]]Another major school is the Dynamists, who opposed the concept of matter being a constituent of bodies. The poster child of dynamism was Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who reduced corporeal subjects to his monads, which were analagous to souls. To Leibniz, extension (and sensible reality as a whole) is nothing more than an appearance or symbol, and that the corporeal world is absorbed in the spiritual. Aristotelians ]]The Aristotelian philosophy recognized in corporal substance, there are two substantial principles: matter (the "first matter", or materia prima, which is not the same thing as the mechanist concept of matter), and form. Aristotle's "first matter" does not represent the imaginable notion of extension, but represents the idea of matter in its purity, as simply that of which things are made. The understanding of matter as potentiality was an Aristotelian view. If the materia prima is that of which things are made, in itself nothing actual and capable of separate existence, the other of the two substantial principles is form. Form is an active principal, the soul of the thing which determines the purely passive first matter. Form is imposed upon matter as a potter molds clay in resemblance of the object he has in mind. Once the sculptor sculpts his clay, it becomes something. Form makes something what it is. Aristotle's approach became known as "hylomorphism"; corporeality (a corporeal substance) is a union of first matter (a passive principle/potentiality) with form (an active principal). Every corporeal substance is a compound of two substantial and complementary parts: one passive and wholly indeterminate (matter), and one active (form). Hylomorphism conceives of substance as a compound of matter and form. Aristotle defines an object's matter as that of which an object is made; it is a relative term. An object counts as matter relative to something else, as a clay is relative to a brick. Change is analyzed as material transformation; matter is what undergoes a change of form. A block of bronze has bronze as its matter and a block as its form, and it can change into a new form, such as a statue. According to Aristotle's theory of perception, we perceive an object by receiving its form with our sense organs. The soul is a form, as it is related to the body as form is to matter. According to Aristotle, there is no problem explaining the unity of matter and soul. Aristotle ridiculed the Pythagorean doctrine of reincarnation, arguing that the soul is fitted to a body. The living body constantly loses old matter and gains new matter, raising the problem of identity; however, the soul ensures that the five-year-old body and the seventy-year-old body of the same person are the same, despite having different matter. After death, the body no longer belongs to the soul. Another approach to resolving the problem relies on the distinction between proximate and non-proximate matter. The fully organized body does not remain the same thing after its death, presenting a new issue. Humans are endowed with an intellect, which, according to Aristotle, has no bodily organ; this is in contrast with other psychological abilities such as sense perception and imagination. Intellect can exist apart from the body, contradicting the claim of the soul governing the body. Aristotle complicates matters even further by making a distinction between two types of intellect: passive and active/agent. Interpreters of Aristotle are troubled with explaining how intellect fits into Aristotle's hylomorphic theory, with one interpretation claiming that a person's ability to think belongs to an incorporeal organ distinct from the body; this interpretation is somewhat dualistic. The passive intellect is a property of the body, while the active intellect is distinct from the body. Every person has his/her own active intellect, which some (including Alexander of Aphrodisias) argue is an unknown mover (God). The ability to think is also said to be a property of the soul, making the soul the body's form, and making thinking not involve any bodily organ. Medieval philosophy ]]Medieval philosophers then used Aristotelian philosophers to distinguish between substantial forms and accidental forms. A substance necessarily possesses at least one substantial form, and it may possess a variety of accidental forms. A substantial form of a substance consists of the object's individual properties, while accidental forms are non-essential properties that can be lost or acquired without altering the original subject's identity. The matter of a substance not made from other substances consists of prime matter. The 11th century neoplatonist Avicebron created the concept of universal hylomorphism, a neoplatonic version of Aristotelian hylomorphism. Bonaventure and Duns Scotus supported this theory; both the body and the soul were held to have matter and form, so both were hylomorphic. That would mean that there is a matter to the soul, but not the kind of physical matter now familiar to most scientists. This matter is "spiritual matter", a notion that went back to ancient times (even in Saint Paul's writings in the New Testament). A hylomorphic soul - a compound of matter and form - would consist of spiritual matter, plus its own form. Typically, the medieval thinkers tended to identify this spiritual matter with light. Corporeal subjects must therefore have two forms; a plurality of forms. Universal hylomorphism has three categories: God, matter and form (created beings), and will. It differs from regular hylomorphism in that it argues that matter and form is true in both the physical and spiritual worlds; angels were held to be hylomorphic individuals. The spiritual world was also a connecting link between God and the physical world, making universal hylomorphism a neat fit into a hierarchical fit of reality that has God at the top, created spirits in the middle, and the physical world at the bottom. This fit even Aristotle's cosmology better, making the theory popular. Matter and form are everywhere in relation to the things substratum and property. Universal hylomorphism, however, brought disagreement over whether a living being's soul is its only substantial form, responsible for all the fatures of its body. In universal hylomorphism, there are two substantial forms: the soul, and the shape and structure of the body. Thomism ]]Thomas Aquinas argued for standard hylomorphism, opposing universal hylomorphism. Aquinas, a faithful interpreter of Aristotle, claimed that a living being's soul is its only substantial form, although the human also has numerous accidental forms that account for its non-essential features. Contemporary philosopher Eleonore Stump argued that the body is matter that is configured and structured, with the soul being the configurer. A dead body is merely matter that was once configured by the soul, but no longer is, as it does not possess the configuring capacity of a human being. Aquinas believed that the brain had some basic cognitive function, but the soul held the rational capacity for humans. Modern science ]]The idea of hylomorphism was reintroduced by Werner Heisenberg, who wrote that atoms and elementary particles form a world of potentialities rather than things or facts. Another reason why hylomorphic theory is attractive to some in modern physics is the desire to come up with a unifying theory that draws all of the natural laws together. As laws of nature, they have regulative function, and they order and organize things, bearing purpose. A hylomorphic theory would be helpful not just in maintaining that teleology, but also drawing everything together into a quest for a grand, unified theory of everything. Category:Philosophy